


outside the reigning order

by rosemary_boy



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 06:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19351372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosemary_boy/pseuds/rosemary_boy
Summary: “Our history, our - our future. The Arrangement, but also, uh, other things. You said, um, ‘What would you do if… if Head Office wasn’t an issue?’”---In which Crowley is a dumbass romantic and Aziraphale is just a dumbass





	outside the reigning order

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from "i lost my innocence" by ezra furman off the album "transangelic exodus." the album itself is a really fun pseudo-narrative album about gender identity and sexuality and dating a literal angel while on the run from the government!

It should come as no surprise that life goes on as usual after the Apocalypse-That-Wasn’t. There is, of course, the minor hiccup of being dragged back to their respective Head Offices, but that ends up being more of a laugh than anything. And after, there are no more assignments sent down the line, no more overnight trips out to Scotland or France for frivolous blessings or temptations. It takes Aziraphale a few weeks to get used to it. He really has nothing to do, no obligations beyond whatever plans he’d made with Crowley the day before.

For example, this afternoon, he’s decided to take inventory of the shop. He knows that Adam had restocked the shelves somewhat haphazardly, but his records from before were so poor, he has no idea which books are new additions and which are missing. Fortunately, his favorites - the prophecies, a particular few folios, the personally inscribed Wilde plays - are all accounted for. Unfortunately, he gets sidetracked as soon as he picks up an original copy of _Mrs. Dalloway_. He flicks the cover open and remembers the night he bought it, about thirty years after Virgina Woolf passed away, in a musty estate sale that he and Crowley had stumbled upon half-drunk and exuberant. He holds the book, traces the worn lines of the leather, thinks of the demon’s arm slung around his shoulder as they staggered through the foggy streets.

The front door of the shop is thrown open, and Crowley strides inside. “Ah, speak of the devil,” Aziraphale says with a small laugh. Crowley looks at him quizzically. “Was just thinking about… well, never mind,” Aziraphale trails off.

“Right,” Crowley says with a shrug. “You ready for dinner, angel?”

Aziraphale puts his book down and abandons the inventory he’d been ignoring for the last hour anyway. “Where are we going tonight?” he asks, following Crowley outside and locking the door behind him. It’s a lovely summer evening; the air is thick and warm and full of life.

“New place - just opened. Miracle we were able to get on the reservation list,” Crowley says. Aziraphale laughs at the old joke, more out of habit than actual amusement.

Yes, life really is back to normal - same jokes, same habits. But the jokes don’t mean anything anymore, because Crowley isn’t a foul demon, and Aziraphale isn’t a knight of Heaven; they’re just two friends in London with minor reality-manipulating powers.

Crowley somehow finds a parking space just up the road from the restaurant. They walk down the street in silence, both enjoying the fading sunlight. Having lived in London for more than a century, Aziraphale knows his way around most of the neighborhoods, but there’s something about this particular street that feels familiar. The memory lingers in the back of his mind, like a song he can’t remember the words to. Their short walk is punctuated by the sounds of happy, human life: laughter, a child babbling, a woman calling out to her friend. 

There’s a line to get in the restaurant, some half-pretentious Polish place. Crowley goes up to the door and whispers to the host, and they’re quickly escorted to a small table in a quiet corner by the kitchen. Aziraphale loves sitting by the kitchen - he loves to see the humans scurrying around, busy creating and sharing something beautiful with each other. Also, he swears the service is better there.

Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s eyes on him as he watches the rest of the restaurant. “What is it, my dear boy?” he asks, and the demon lets out a quick sigh. 

“Oh, just thinking,” Crowley says cagily. 

“Well, yes, I assumed as much.” Their waiter stops by the table with a bottle and Aziraphale thanks him politely. Crowley nods absently and picks his glass up, swirls it carelessly without spilling a drop.

“We’ve been here before,” Crowley says eventually.

“I thought you said this place just opened,” Aziraphale points out.

“I suppose you could say it’s a re-opening,” Crowley counters. “They had to close the old place, but it’s the same family running it. We were here back in the 80’s. Used to be a -”

“Oh, was it that bakery?” Aziraphale interrupts, suddenly remembering why the neighborhood feels so familiar. “With the little crullers that we took to the park?” There had been Romantic music piped in through little speakers, and the owners had pressed a box of pastries into Crowley’s arms after he left a generous tip. When they left, they’d pulled a bottle of champagne out of the Bentley, walked down the street to a little park, leaned against a tree and shared delicate angels’ wings while Crowley hummed Chopin and Aziraphale fretted about the blessings he’d blown off that evening.

“That’s right.” Crowley leans back in his seat a little, smiles. “Such a shame when it closed down.”

Aziraphale makes a small noise in agreement, and adds, “Lots of memories here.” It is entirely true; he can feel the history of the place, feel the love baked into the bricks. But he’s also caught up in more personal memories, of the last time they came here, of what Crowley had said in the park after they’d drained the champagne twice over and the night had closed in over them.

He’s just about to open his mouth - to ask Crowley when he suddenly got so nostalgic? To ask if he’s thinking about what he said, too? - when the waiter returns with an absolutely enchanting cucumber soup that demands his full attention.

Crowley picks through his dinner with bemused interest. It’s always been less compelling to him than other human endeavors - say, music, or alcohol - but Aziraphale has noticed him eating more lately. At least, he’s ordering his own dinners; he still ends up offering his half-cleared plate to Aziraphale.

“That was wonderful,” the angel says, and Crowley smiles. “Dessert?”

“I was thinking,” Crowley says slowly, “we could go for a walk?”

Aziraphale nods. “I’d like that.”

They leave the noisy restaurant even busier than when they arrived and make their way to a park down the street, the park Aziraphale remembers from 1983. A family with a dog is walking down the path, a few couples are whispering among the trees, and a young man with a beard is playing the guitar. He’s better than Aziraphale would have expected - has an ear for subtlety, at least - and the soft notes float through the greenery like fireflies.

This, Aziraphale thinks, is why they stopped the apocalypse. This evening, the two of them walking through the dark, with London breathing life and love around them. The couples love each other, the child loves his dog, the man with the guitar loves his music. Aziraphale loves them all. And Crowley -

Crowley is looking at him, hands in his pockets. They’ve slowed to a stop beneath an old tree, old enough that it may have been in London almost as long as they have. Aziraphale hadn’t even noticed that they’d stopped walking, had just kept pace with the demon beside him, but now Crowley was standing still, with his glasses pushed halfway down.

“Do you remember what I asked you, all those years ago?” he asks Aziraphale, voice slipping low under the guitar. He takes a step closer.

1983, late July. Bathed in moonlight, buzzed on champagne and Chopin - from the restaurant, they’d been playing a CD, that’s why Crowley had been humming. Of course he remembers. They’d stopped walking, had leaned against the tree and just a little against each other. They’d turned to face one another, shoulder to shoulder, close enough for Aziraphale to smell the fresh green scent that clung to Crowley, the smell of plants and rain and a twinge of woodsmoke.

“You asked me… we talked about, well, us,” Aziraphale says hesitantly. “Our history, our - our future. The Arrangement, but also, uh, other things. You said, um, ‘What would you do if… if Head Office wasn’t an issue?’” And now he’s barely speaking above a whisper. Woodsmoke and rain close over him - a thunderstorm. It makes Aziraphale’s knees feel a little funny.

“And what did you tell me?” Crowley asks, and a tiny, teasing smile starts to settle over his face. 

“That that could - potentially - I meant really potentially - make things different,” Aziraphale says in a tone he’s never heard before, at least not from his own mouth. He’s suddenly extremely aware of his hands, and how he’s not quite sure where to put them; at the moment, they’re held rather stiffly by his sides, thumbnail worrying at a cuticle, but he’s just gotten a rather sudden mental image of running them through Crowley’s hair, and - 

“Mm, that’s right,” the demon says, and he’s responding to what the angel said but it feels like he’s just read his mind. Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s breath on his lips. “So, now… how do you feel without Head Office in the picture?” 

It’s strange to admit it to himself, but Aziraphale has been expecting this - since they got to the park, since they arrived at the restaurant, since they got back to Earth. “Fuck,” he says quietly, “isn’t it obvious?” And he surges forward, seals their lips together.

Although angels and demons may exist outside of traditional 3D space, they are still very much confined by traditional time. An angel or a demon may theoretically pop up anywhere on Earth in the blink of an eye, but time travel is impossible for any being, celestial or occult. So, when Crowley’s lips touch Aziraphale’s for the first time, and Aziraphale feels time stretch out around him, it is only in the metaphorical sense. Nevertheless, Aziraphale feels the weight of millennia of yearning in the kiss, all flashing before his eyes before he remembers that humans usually kiss with their eyes closed.

He would have been happy to stay under that tree until Heaven and Hell decided to give Armageddon another go, but Crowley pulls away just as Aziraphale begins to move his hands up - towards what, he’s not sure. “Just to clarify, this is - I mean, you do -?” he asks, practically into Aziraphale’s mouth. 

Aziraphale laughs. “Not obvious, then?” Crowley looks at him reproachfully, but the pathos is reduced somewhat by the fact that he’s resting his forehead against Aziraphale’s. “This is, my dear, something we should have done a hundred years ago. Head Office be - well - you know.”

“Damned? Blessed?”

“Exactly.”

**Author's Note:**

> rest of the title verse, for context:  
> I looked a real long time  
> To find the border  
> Of a kingdom of love, outside the  
> Reigning order


End file.
